So, I transitioned about a year ago from the Mac version of Scrivener to the Windows version (which I’m running in Linux), and there are some Mac/Windows differences that it’s taken me quite some time to sort out.
I used to have a flow where I would click into the Binder, hit ENTER to create a new text, ARROW down to that text, and then TAB into that text.
In the Windows version, when I hit ENTER to create a new text in the Binder and then TAB, for some reason the Recycle bucket in the menu greys out, and then I can’t navigate within the Binder any more. The only way to get back is to SHIFT+TAB.
I’m baffled by this behaviour, and I would be grateful for help.
I would have a look at the shortcuts in Navigate ▸ Move Focus To, and in particular the top one. You might also want to change it, in the Keyboard options tab (search for “Supporting Editor”, confusingly). I changed mine to Ctrl+Tab.
This shortcut will rotate you between all major visible views. So with all of these currently visible: Binder → Top/Left Editor → Right/Bottom Editor. But those other shortcuts are not to be understimated. As much as I use Ctrl+Tab, I probably use the others even more, because I do often have the editor split, and am wanting to get straight to something specific. Navigate ▸ Inspect is another good submenu to memorise.
I wouldn’t try using Tab for this (with regards to customisation). That key is generally used for more detailed button and control navigation (even on a Mac, though there it is a deeply buried option). You could Tab all the way into the editor, but it would take about half a dozen to get there (across the header and footer bar buttons). Might as well just Ctrl+Tab between the two, or… whatever that weird default shortcut is that I always change immediately.
I get you. As a universal command, it’s unwieldy. All I want is that Mac functionality: binder to text. Anyway, I can make due with “Move Focus.” Thanks for the tip. I absolutely would never have found that on my own.
Well, like I say, you can change that shortcut to Ctrl+Tab (or something else you prefer) and it pretty much works identically to what you are used to, including getting back to the Binder, which you cannot do with regular old tab by itself.
Something I just realised that I’ve always done, going back to the Mac days, is rebind the CapsLock key to Ctrl, when it is held down and pressed with another key. It’s a bit more ergonomic when they are both right next each other, and really overall, I find it way easier to use Ctrl-based shortcuts when it is with the little finger moved left rather than twisted down.
There are several ways of doing that, but KDE and Gnome (via Gnome Tweaks package) have ways of easily doing this with a checkbox in the GUI.
